This invention relates to a poker game that has a special second game within a game event occurring when the player achieves a four card flush on the deal, and more particularly to a poker game played on an electronic video gaming machine in which the player who is initially dealt a four card flush automatically is assured of receiving a five card flush as his final hand.
There has been many types of video poker machines developed over the last twenty years. The first electronic video poker machine displayed the basic game of draw poker. The game was a single player game, i.e. the player plays only his own hand and does not have to beat the hand of another player or the dealer. A single hand of five cards from a single standard deck of fifty-two play cards was dealt to the player and displayed on the video screen. The player selected which cards to hold, and the unheld cards were discarded and replaced with new cards from the same original deck. The resulting hand was the final hand and the player won or lost based on the poker hand ranking of the final hand. The poker hand ranking of the final hand was compared to a pay table and winning hands were paid based on the number of coins wagered by the player.
In typical draw poker gaming machines, the conventional poker hand rankings that are winning combinations are a Royal Flush, a Straight Flush, a Four of a Kind, a Full House, a Flush, a Straight, a Three of a Kind, a Two Pair and a Pair of Jacks or Better. The pay table is established based on the mathematical probability of achieving one of these poker hand rankings and the payout to the player is based on the number of coins, tokens or credits wagered by the player.
The original draw poker gaming machine has been modified to use jokers as wild cards or to use deuces (or even other cards) as wild cards. xe2x80x9cJoker""s Wildxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cDeuces Wildxe2x80x9d draw poker also display to the player a single five card hand and allow the player to discard unwanted cards and receive replacement cards. The pay table is modified to recognize the differing odds for achieving various poker hands when wild cards are involved. Furthermore, different poker hand rankings are used in the pay table to recognize different winning combinations that can be achieved using wild cards, such as Five of a Kind and Royal Flushes with wild cards.
In conventional video draw poker, a typical pay schedule would be as shown in Table 1:
Many different types of pay tables have been developed. Pay tables with large payouts for higher ranking poker hands have been used, but normally the money for these large payouts has been provided by lowering the payouts for the lower ranking poker hands.
Because of the proliferation of gaming throughout the United States and foreign countries, there is a need for other types of gaming machines to be developed to meet the demand. New forms of video poker machines are needed to provide variety to the players and maintain their interest. Many players have become bored and disenchanted with conventional video Draw Poker and are looking for other forms of gaming entertainment.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new, exciting and challenging variation of conventional electronic video poker that will stimulate player interest.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a variation to conventional electronic video poker in which, whenever the player is dealt a four card flush on his first five cards, the player automatically is assured of achieving at least a five card flush since the player will be receiving a fifth card of that suit.
It is a feature of the present invention that if the player has four to a flush on the initial deal, the player is offered the opportunity to go to a second screen display in which the remaining nine cards of the same suit are displayed to the player. One of these nine cards are randomly selected and added to the player""s initial hand to provide the player with a five card flush.
It is an advantage of the present invention that the player is always provided with the opportunity to achieve a five card flush whenever the player is dealt a four card flush on the initial five card deal.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description.
The present invention is based in general on a modification of conventional electronic video poker. The player is dealt an initial hand of five cards, all face up. If four of these first five cards are of the same suit, the player is offered the opportunity to proceed to a second video screen in which the remaining nine cards of that suit are displayed to the player. One of these nine cards is randomly selected and added to the player""s initial five card hand. The player is assured of achieving at least a Flush with the possibility of improving his hand to a Straight Flush or a Royal Flush depending on the first four card flush initially dealt to the player and the fifth card selected.
After this random selection of the fifth card, the player""s hand is evaluated to determine what poker hand ranking the player has achieved and the player is paid an award based on the amount wagered by the player in accordance with a pay table.
If the player does not receive four cards to a flush on the initial deal or if the player declines to take the fifth flush card, the game continues in the conventional manner of video poker with the player discarding unwanted cards and receiving replacement cards for the discarded hand. The final five card hand is then compared to a pay table to determine whether the player has achieved a winning hand based on conventional poker hand rankings.